


Enter the Dragon

by okoriwadsworth



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, New-52 Ricardo Diaz, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25862653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okoriwadsworth/pseuds/okoriwadsworth
Summary: After 6 years being heroes, what will Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance do when someone comes to their home and wants not to destroy their city but to ask a very simple question: Who is truly the best fighter in the world?
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen, Roy Harper/Thea Queen
Comments: 30
Kudos: 12





	1. The Fire-Breathing Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is a Season 6 rewrite. We're going to make damned sure Ricardo Diaz is treated with respect, not like some low-rent hood who happened to get lucky and run a gang. This Ricardo Diaz has a question. His entire life is built around finding the answer to that question. And now he thinks he has come close to finding it. I hope you enjoy our show.

**_In a small monastery in the Laotian jungles…._ **

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

The monks here, who had been trained to teach the ways of Muay Lao, all had a problem. And it was the same problem. Their latest student, while undeniably gifted in all the forms, did not have the temperament of a true martial artist. He sought fights and battles, routinely demanding more sparring even past the point when his teachers agreed he had mastered the day’s lessons. Plus, he was abusive to the other trainees and to the non-martially inclined on the grounds, refusing to help clean as all the other students did.

Thus, the conclusion was reached. They would ask this problem student to leave the grounds immediately. So, with a slowly-growing trickle of dread, they summoned him. And as he walked in, the monks noticed how he moved. Like a cobra, or a dragon ready to strike. He moved with the lethality of someone who had decided they were going to kill you, but were just putting together the how now.

Without a word, he walked in and glanced at the monks. And then, in the time it took to catch a breath, he set upon them. As it turned out, he knew more than just Muay Lao. He had learned Wing Chun in China, Taekwondo in Korea, and every martial art he might have found useful. After all, he had a vendetta to fulfill.

And so, as Ricardo Diaz left his final training ground, he looked at the dragon tattoo on his forearm and knew. It was time for the Green Arrow, and his bird the Black Canary, to answer the question he had spent five years preparing himself to ask: Who was really the best fighter in the world?

**_Meanwhile, back in Starling City at the Queen Mansion…._ **

\-----------------------------------------------------

Oliver Queen looked out over his city and felt something like pride in his chest. It had taken 6 years, and all his charm, natural gifts for intimidation, and more than a good bit of money, but he had managed to slowly get Starling City on the path back to the city that it was supposed to be. He had lost so much over these 6 years. Tommy, Mom, Sara, and finally Felicity and Quentin last year. But even despite it all, whenever his world grew darker than he would have liked, his mind went to his right hand. In this moment, he could see her in the main Olympic-level sparring area they had set up in the dining room of the mansion.

Dinah Laurel Lance, the light to his darkness, had always been there with him. Ever since they found each other after his five years away, he had known he could do nothing but bring him into her life. And then… the first battle with the Dark Archer had happened. Even though he knew, emotionally, it was a bad idea it didn’t matter. He staggered out of the warehouse, got on his bike, and somehow made his way to her house. Collapsing in her front door he knew he was done for. He couldn’t lie to her anymore.

And so, from that day to this, they had been partners. He had trained her as best he could, and then after the Undertaking succeeded, they decided they couldn’t return until they were truly ready to be the heroes their city deserved. So, they trained, with Lady Shiva and a man named Ricardo Diaz. And by the time they returned to their city, they were ready to be the heroes their city needed. But world-class fighting skill wasn’t the only different thing about them. They vowed to be honest with each other, and with those they loved. And through the pain, and the betrayals that began after Slade arrived, they were always there for each other.

Now, as he heard the bass-drum like pounding of Laurel’s textbook middle kicks landing on the reinforced heavy bag, he remembered just how happy he was to have her around. And that thought gave him pause. He had learned, painfully, that any joy he felt would always have a bitter aftertaste. It had been that way when Sara returned, and they all realized she had sworn herself to the League of Assassins. It had taken the whole year, with Laurel taking the lead on it while Oliver dealt with the Slade Wilson problem, but they had finally convinced Sara that she could come home, could be a part of their lives. And then Malcolm Merlyn had killed her.

Well, he hadn’t SPECIFICALLY killed her. Instead, because in this way their life had become some sort of science fiction novel, it turned out that Malcolm had used something called a Lazarus Pit to resuscitate Tommy and trained him in all his ways before setting him on Sara. It had taken an entire year, but he had finally beaten Malcolm and beheaded him. But that, too, had come at a cost. He had been forced to revive Sara, and then fight with Laurel to get her soul back, only to hear Sara say that she needed to travel the world to find herself. More than that, Thea had to join their cause. He hated seeing that, but he knew she could no longer stand on the sidelines while they fought.

And over the next three years, their world expanded and bloomed in ways they could have never imagined. It turned out that Laurel had become a metahuman, with a cry that could explode a room full of windows and wobble a building should she need to. And with the aid of a vocal coach who taught her how to control pitch, she could use it as a weapon. The whole time, they had been there for each other. And last year, they had made it official. During that weird alien invasion business, and boy was THAT an odd sentence, he had proposed to Laurel. They had gotten married in a private ceremony in the bunker, because time and circumstance did not allow them a proper wedding.

And so, here we were, he thought. Oliver Queen was happy. And at that moment, because things usually go this way, he hears the familiar thunk of a letter pinned to a throwing dart landed on his door.

Rolling his eyes Ollie walked outside and grabbed the dart. Reading the note, his blue eyes widened in shock.

Things were about to get bad. No, that was an insult to this. Bad had been being out-shot by Malcolm Merlyn.

What this note said, on the other hand, was worse than bad. What was about to happen here was… biblical.


	2. Embers and Smoke

**_At the Queen Mansion in Starling City…._ **

\--------------------------------------------------------

Pulling the note off the throwing dart and walking inside the mansion, Oliver Queen turned off the part of his mind that was seriously contemplating running for mayor and turned on his warrior mindset. Glancing over towards Laurel, who was removing the tape from her hands and slipping back into her work clothes from the kickpads and Muay Thai gloves she had worn to spar, he hoped that he was overreacting. But, based on the formality of this note, he knew it probably wasn’t. He simply could not envision a note being presented to him in this manner unless there was a real threat in it. So, once Laurel finished getting dressed, he unfolded the note which was written on irresponsibly expensive Japanese paper and in classic calligraphy, barely noticing the QR code at the bottom.

“Green Arrow and Black Canary,

Since your training time with me, there have been many who have sought to defeat you, sought to prove themselves to be the best fighter in the world. And man or woman, you have either bested them in combat or befriended them. The person you are about to confront will not allow you to do the latter, and may be too good for you to do the former. His name is Ricardo Diaz, and he is desperate to prove he is the best fighter in the world.

All I know about him, other than whispers in the dead of night about his brutality, is that he is not the Ricardo Diaz we both know. Everything else can be found in the video I have linked at the bottom of this letter.

Lady Shiva.”

Snuggling up closer to his wife, Oliver holds his phone over the code at the bottom of the letter and they both watch with their eyes wide open as the video plays.

First off, the quality is grainy and scattered. It’s obvious these are underground tournaments, dressed-up bar brawls where the referee is there solely for the purpose of creating the veneer of legitimacy and death is not an uncommon occurrence. It’s not necessarily something they’re unfamiliar with, but to see it again after so long not experiencing it is like having cold water thrown on their head. They even begin to tell joking stories about how this battle here feels like that night in Kuala Lumpur, and then their time with Shiva and Diaz where they cleared out a Triad bar in Hong Kong one night.

But the jokes soon cease as they see a man loaded with lean muscle, and an equally expansive number of tattoos, walk into a blood-stained ring and realize that this is their guy. Instantly, they notice how he moves. Every fighter, whether they be a greenhorn or a master, moves a certain way. Some people are liquid and sensuous, floating around the perimeter of wherever a fight might be taking place as though the entire thing is a dance and they’re just waiting for the steps to begin. Others stomp and loom, as if the mere act of them standing at full height and strength is enough to shrink the room to what they need it to be. No movement choice is inherently wrong, but it’s more about what you need to use. For instance, Oliver stomps and Laurel floats. They’ve tried to fight the other’s way and it’s always felt wrong, like someone trying on a differently-sized pair of shoes. But this Ricardo Diaz doesn’t move. He just stands there, his hands folded in a prayer position as if daring you to try something. The concept isn’t unfamiliar to them, but it’s very difficult to do properly. This, though, looks like he’s been doing it all his life.

The next thing they notice is how he looks at the man in front of him. It’s almost like, and this chills Laurel when she notices it and takes Oliver a half-a-second to think of it too, watching someone run through a computer program in real time. The beauty of fighting is in the movement, in the seeing of openings and the quick closing or further creation of them. This isn’t beauty. This is cold precision, like watching Deep Blue toy with a preschooler.

And then, the man they now know as Ricardo Diaz throws a relatively lazy chambered punch and it lands like a 10-megaton bomb on his opponent’s face and they see the trouble underneath the presentation. Whoever trained this guy left nothing out, not one single thing. To do this right, to beat this guy and make sure he wasn’t going to come back and bite them in the ass later, was going to take a lot of work and a great amount of humility. Looking at this wild man, who could barely be called a person because of how wide and deep his fury and skill in combat ran, they realized it had to be done. No one like this could be anything but a danger to anyone he met.

All Oliver and Laurel hoped, as they made breakfast still shaken by the experience, was that Ricardo Diaz was far away from them. At this moment, they couldn’t think of the strategy for however they could possibly beat this guy. Nothing was coming to them, so they both wanted to postpone the trouble. Lord knows that they had enough for 6 years that they could be forgiven for wanting to hold someone off until they were sure he was in town.

Little did they know, he was already here. And the man who was nicknamed “The Dragon” was about to scorch the body of someone very close to them.

 ** _At the Wildcat Gym in Capitol Hill_** ……

\-------------------------------------------------------

Ted Grant was a famous man, and there were mornings where he wasn’t sure how to handle it. Sure, he had some notoriety from his days as a muay thai fighter. Being the first American to fight against a Thai boxer and perhaps the most respected foreign practitioner of the style had helped with that, but this was different. For one thing, he had spent a lot of time training Laurel Lance and Oliver Queen in the finer points of Muay Thai until they could safely be called expert-level. He hadn’t wanted that popularized, but because of the life Oliver led and the realization that he really had no privacy in his public life anymore, there had been no way to get around that. People were storming his gym now, asking to be taught just because Oliver Queen had learned it and they wanted to be like him.

He appreciated what Oliver and Laurel had done for him, and he tried to be useful to them in the same way. He counseled Oliver on keeping humble, as he hadn’t been that one night and had his entire career and life driven into a direction he hadn’t expected as a result of it. If he could do nothing else, he could make sure no one suffered through the same trials he had.

For Laurel, who was like the daughter he never had but desperately treasured, he was constantly reminding her to reach out for help to others when she needed it. He knew, that after five years spent looking for her lost love all by herself, it was very difficult for her to let other people help her with things when she had pulled that massive miracle off all by her lonesome. He would be there for her, and so would Oliver, but he always feared that wouldn’t be enough, that she needed more.

But, as he was shooing away the last over-ambitious student he had, he wasn’t thinking of anything else except how he could best help Laurel and Oliver. Maybe he needed to show up at their place tomorrow and make breakfast. There were things he needed to help them with. And then, he felt it.

You don’t train for as long as Ted Grant has trained in Muay Thai and just about every other form of kickboxing that exists in the world without having a danger sense that’s pretty sharp, and right now it wasn’t just **TELLING** him something was wrong. It was screaming like a banshee, begging to be heard, telling him to listen.

Despite that voice, though, the man that Thai fighters of all stripes called “Deās̄ùm” for Wildcat did the completely illogical, but utterly noble, thing and turned around. There, taping up his fists like someone who has all the time in the world, is the man Lady Shiva had told him about. While Oliver and Laurel got a note, Ted got a phone call. Ted Grant damned sure didn’t stand on ceremony, but everyone in the circle of the Green Arrow and the Black Canary figured that he needed to know what he was in for.

Whoever this Ricardo Diaz was, in the moment Ted knew two things: He would want to know who the Green Arrow and the Black Canary were, and there was absolutely no way Ted could beat him.

Maybe when he was younger, with knees that weren’t held together by razor-wire and Icy-Hot, he might have given this guy a run for his money. Probably would have won, he thinks. But those days are gone now, he knows. But, if this Diaz punk wanted to know who was under the hood, he’d have to do some forensic video analysis. Because Ted Grant damned sure wasn’t about to say a word.

“I know who you are. And I know you know why I’m here. But I need the information you have. So we are at an impasse at the moment, and I hope we can settle this peacefully without violence” Ricardo Diaz said, even though his body language and tone of voice made it exceedingly clear that he hoped that Ted Grant chose violence.

“Let’s not bullshit anyone, ok? You know I’m not going to give you what you want, and the way you’re standing in front of me lets me know what you really want is a fight. So how about we step in this ring here and have one?” Ted Grant says, walking backwards into the ring and keeping his eye on his man the whole time.

And as soon as they stepped into the ring, that’s exactly what happened. Ted tried everything he could think of, every strike, knee, elbow, and kick he had learned from a lifetime training under the feet of masters. But none of it gave him more than a moment’s advantage. Ricardo Diaz was too strong, too fast, and too young.

Eventually, Ted got tired and before he knew it, Ricardo Diaz landed a textbook low kick right to his surgically repaired knee and then it was all over. A kick to the head finished the job and as Ted lay in his own ring, his leg bent at a grotesque angle and concussed, Ricardo Diaz stripped him of his shirt and pulled a magic marker out of his pocket.

In the final insult, “The Dragon” wrote on his back “Bring me the Arrow and his bird” before walking out the front door, humming “The Rime of The Ancient Mariner” under his breath.

Even if no one knew it but him, war had just been declared.


	3. The Fire Reveals

The Fire Reveals

**_At the Wildcat Gym……._ **

\-----------  
(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She wanted to vomit. Seeing her trainer, the man who had taught her everything she needed to know about honor and dignity, beaten this way was disgusting. He had given her confidence in herself, confidence that even Ollie hadn’t been able to give her. And now, seeing this man broken by someone who was only a phantom up until this point, it filled her with something she could only remember feeling when she watched Tommy Merlyn die that night in the Glades. It was a rage, a fury she knew to be wholly unheroic and in no way befitting of the person she wanted to be. Even now, years after it happened, she remembered how she lashed out at Oliver when she saw Tommy dead, and knew it was because they weren’t good enough yet to have really stopped Malcolm Merlyn when they had the chance. It made her feel not like a person, but like a 125-pound collection of exposed nerves. Once she calmed down, after sleep and some food, she decided to lift weights and throw herself full-force into training and meditation. She never wanted to feel that powerless, that deeply useless, for as long as she drew breath. So, to realize that she was again powerless to have stopped this from happening required her to use those breathing exercises she had spent so much time picking up so that she didn’t erupt like Mount St. Helens again.

Then, right behind the anger, the cold realization of what this meant hit like someone slapping her full-force in the face with a railroad tie. Lady Shiva was widely accepted, by consensus, to be the best martial artist in the world. She didn’t compete in sporting bouts, and truth be told, she didn’t need to. Everyone who traveled in the circles they did intimately realized that Shiva had mastered everything. Knowing that, it was also true that it wouldn’t take anyone too long to get to Ted Grant in the suggestion of who was in the top 10. And to realize that whoever walked in here could so easily decimate someone as skilled as Ted Grant, and then leave with no one being the wiser, did not feel particularly comfortable.

And then, on his back, she saw it. “Bring me the Green Arrow, and his bird the Black Canary.”

Instantly, she knew she had to tell Ollie. To quote her favorite Clash song, “ ** _Now war is declared and battle come down_**.”

**_Meanwhile, in the Foundry……_ **

\---------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

These were the times he missed his brother John Diggle. John had a mind for the details, an ability to see the chess pieces on the board, that he deeply relished. And right now, as he was running through what he could remember from his Wing Chun and Wushu training, he needed someone who could see the things he was missing. Right now, he couldn’t see the thing that was drawing Ricardo Diaz to Starling City. He knew it was there, right in front of his face, but he needed John Diggle to pull the clear notes out of the noise.

Of course, John wasn’t here. Ever since that whole Green Lantern business had happened, John routinely was found away from Starling City and in fact had been gone since this whole business had begun. Besides, he realized with a dark amusement, how exactly would he even begin to explain this if you hadn’t been here when it started?

“Well, John, someone we don’t know who shares a name with one of our initial trainers and close friends has shown up in our city. We don’t know why he’s here, or what he wants. All we know is that he handled Ted Grant in a way that no one has ever handled him before. But, despite how much we don’t know, we really could use your help to figure out why he’s here. Because I think I know, and then something else happens and I completely lose everything once again.”

“So I suppose it’s a really good thing I’m back in town, because it sounds like you need my help” John Diggle said, which led the Green Arrow to realize 2 things: He had apparently been talking out loud, and John had reconstructed his Green Lantern uniform to look like an Army officer’s dress uniform.

Grabbing two beers from the fridge he kept in the foundry for exactly this kind of work, the Green Arrow set up a blackboard and drew up everything they knew so far. And as he wrote it down, Oliver noticed something. He, Laurel, and John had been training with top-level investigators for 6 years, people who trained at the FBI, CIA, the Mounties, and Scotland Yard. And over those 6 years, they had become masters at pulling apart key pieces of information from something small and insignificant. But this felt different. For starters, the person they were looking at was giving them precisely nothing. He had apparently taken a tremendous amount of time to ensure that all his travel plans were kept secret to an almost ridiculous degree. It was almost as though, in addition to the martial arts training he obviously had, he had spent some time being taught how to cover his tracks by someone who was obviously a master at it.

But as he thought of it, he had seen this pattern before. That meant…. OH SHIT. 

(John Diggle’s POV)

As Oliver workshopped his way through this problem, nursing his one IPA as he clearly was trying to keep a clear head, he realized how much his brother needed him here. Sure, Earth was under his protection but he wasn’t the only Lantern on this planet. Oliver needed him here, especially now based on what he was hearing. This was bad. Whoever this Ricardo Diaz person was, he had been well-schooled and well-prepared for this exact eventuality. He had studied tons of martial arts to prepare himself to defeat Oliver. Not Laurel, or even himself, but specifically Oliver. And then, he had taken fishing boats, cargo ships, and puddle-jumpers to move under the radar.

As they worked through the pattern, Oliver stopped talking and grew quiet and slowly headed towards the shooting range they kept in the foundry. Not knowing what his brother was seeing, John looked at the blackboard. OH GOD.

“This Diaz guy trained with the League, didn’t he?” John said, shaken to his very core that somehow, even when they thought it was over, this ancient order they had chosen not to destroy but instead leave in the hands of Nyssa Al Ghul was still coming back to haunt them, like heartburn.

“Worse” Oliver said, firing arrows into tennis balls as he clearly was so infuriated that shooting his compound bow was just about the only thing he could think of to do.

“What could possibly be worse than a top-level martial artist trained in evasion tactics by the League of Assassins? The only thing I could think of is…. OH SHIT.”

“Yes, John, Ricardo Diaz was trained by Slade when he was on the Mirakuru, and then learned from the League of Assassins after THAT. Why is he so focused on us? What did we do to him?”

That question, even John Diggle couldn’t answer. The only answers they had were that whoever this Ricardo Diaz was, he had declared war on the Green Arrow and the Black Canary. And, unlike every other person who had made that claim, this was a war that they could lose.

**_Meanwhile, in the Glades……_ **

(Ricardo Diaz’s POV)

Even despite his anger, Ricardo Diaz understood the value of planning and thinking. If he made a move too soon, or showed his hand before it was time to reveal what he had, he could lose. And knowing what Oliver and Laurel had done to him, what they had taken from him, there was no way he could allow them the satisfaction of seeing him lose.

Once they knew, once they all knew, what he had lost because of their decisions, because of the choices they had made, the fight would be easy. All he had to do now was to start to play his cards. He had already played one by taking out Ted Grant. Now it was time to play the next two.

For a moment, though, he allowed himself to remember. He forced himself to remember how it felt when his mother came home to Puerto Rico, weeping and screaming in equal measure, telling her baby boy about how her brother, Constantine Drakon, had been killed by some monster in a green hood. From that day, Richard Drakon had vowed to avenge his uncle’s murder. He had, after his mother was done grieving, explained what he would have to do. Constantine was a man of a certain honor, and so to do what needed to be done, his nephew would learn everything that could be learned about the martial arts. Everywhere he went, everything he did, was to find himself in a place where he could avenge what the Hood had done to Uncle Constantine. So everywhere he went, he began to ask if anyone knew about this Hood.

Soon, he found a man who did. That man’s name was Slade Wilson, and while Richard did not completely understand the vengeance this Slade felt for his prey, he did happily learn everything he taught. Everything about covering your tracks, and moving in a city without anyone particularly knowing what you were doing, Richard soaked up like a sponge. That, it dawned on him, would be what he would have to do. Continuing to call himself Richard Drakon would mean that someone, somewhere, would have the penny drop as to his true intentions. That could not be.

So, over surprisingly good beer and a chicken tagine in Morocco, he came up with the name. It’d have to be something that sounded like a name you would not particularly remember, that would sound like just another person until he struck. That name? Ricardo Diaz.

His alias handled; Richard Drakon kept training. He kept getting better, until he was either a black belt or master of sport in all the martial arts he would need.

And now, as he marked Ted Grant’s name off, he could admit his planning had been perfect. The Green Arrow didn’t know anything about him, so he couldn’t prepare for him. Now, it was time to up the ante. 

This time tomorrow, Thea Queen and Roy Harper would be next. He had been watching them all, every member of this contemptible “Team Arrow”. Ted Grant was their trainer, and he had broken him as easily as you would break an egg.

He knew this was a statement of intent, and he didn’t much mind. Because, after all, he was the Dragon. He would breathe fire, and he would scorch everyone around Oliver Queen until nothing and no one was left.


	4. Burn It To The Ground

**_At a nondescript warehouse in the Glades…._ **

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(Ricardo Diaz’s POV)

Burn It to the Ground. That was what his mother, one of the few people who knew why he was doing this, told him when he called her on the satellite phone he had “borrowed” after that whole business with the Siege of Starling City had ended.

And so, he would. After all, what kind of a person would he be if he didn’t do what his mother said?

It had been Uncle Constantine who had given him that lesson, when he wasn’t driving him to karate classes. “No man, no man worth a name, should ever be anything but wholly devoted to those he loves. If you cannot do this, cannot be this for those you love, what is the point?” That lesson stuck with him. Through all of his training, it stuck with him and it flowered into an incentive, into his defining moral code. Devotion to his mother, to his family name and what he knew it had always been supposed to stand for, was the thing guiding him to do all of this. He could never lose sigh of that, no matter how much fun he found in certain tasks.

And right in front of him was one of those fun tasks.

Thea Dearden Queen and Roy William Harper, Jr. were chained up in this warehouse. While he still wasn’t about to engage the Green Arrow and the Black Canary in a frontal assault, there were things he could do to draw them out onto a battlefield of his choice.

And right now, as he sharpened up the hand and foot talons he had acquired from a ninja in Japan, he prepared to show Speedy and Arsenal just what he was willing to do to get what he wanted, what he was ENTITLED to.

**_7 Days Ago, at a beachside bar in Puerto Rico…._ **

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(Thea Queen’s POV)

She wouldn’t admit this out loud, but she was enjoying letting her guard down. Ever since Ollie had told her he was the Green Arrow 4 years ago; all she had done was train. It had been self-protection at first, but soon she found herself a workout partner. Roy Harper had always been there for her; always been the person she could talk to about how undeniably weird her life was now. And Roy had taken care to make sure she was ready for everything that was happening, that had to happen for her to be safe.

A little bit at a time, she concluded she loved him. It was mainly clear to her that Roy cared for her, in the same way Ollie cared for Laurel. He fought alongside her, when Oliver’s old friend and Ra’s Al Ghul’s horseman Maseo came to the city looking to recruit Oliver to join the League of Assassins, and he had never really stopped. But it wasn’t just martial skill that drew her to him. It was how he showed her a side of life she found infinitely more thrilling than society dinners where she was expected to just be in a fancy dress, talk about boring things, and have no real knowledge of life.

One night, after breaking up a bar brawl, she told him. It was never addressed in the moment, because at that moment, in came the Flash to spirit them away to deal with the whole thing with Vandal Savage and they didn’t get a chance to talk about it. But after, when they could, Roy confessed that he was in love with her too.

Their relationship wasn’t like anything Thea had been in, but she liked it that way. For one, Roy didn’t love her for her money. Sure, she could do nice things for him with it, but it wasn’t why he was around.

And after that whole business with Darkh, he had proposed and she had accepted. Laurel had helped her plan the wedding, Oliver had walked her down the aisle, and Quentin intimidated Roy one last time because that’s what she secretly wished Moira and her dad were around to still do.

And now, they were on their honeymoon in Puerto Rico. They had left Roy’s recurve bow, and her compound bow, back in the room. The late Felicity Smoak had developed a proprietary compound for their bows that ensured they could take them anywhere without setting off metal detectors, and getting asked a lot of questions they couldn’t get the answer to.

Right at that exact moment, she saw it. This was a bar on the beach, the sort of place Americans went to dry out and other people went for their honeymoons. There would be no reason, none that made sense, for a bunch of guys to suddenly walk into the place covered from neck to waistline in what were quite obviously Netas tattoos. Unless, of course, they were here for a job. But that was weird too. This was a bar attached to a tourist hotel, so who they could possibly be looking for?

Oh. They were looking for her. Thea knew, even in a two-piece bikini and flip-flops, that she would have to fight her way back to the hotel room. But then, carrying lemonades, she saw Roy. They had been together through all things, and so they had developed symbols. When they needed to fight their way out, it was an exaggerated wink.

(Roy Harper’s POV)

The wink. Oh, dear god, not here. Could they not, for 24 hours, be in a position where they had to fight their way out of something? As he thought of that, though, he heard it for what it was. Whining. This was the life he had always wanted, to feel like he could do something more, be something better than the thug he had been.

And to think now that he deserved the right to complain about what that new life meant was the height of arrogance. Apologizing vociferously to a nearby waitress, slipping two 50’s a piece underneath the lemonades that he now understood they weren’t going to drink, the man known as Arsenal glanced around for a minute and saw it. If he and his new wife were going to fight their way to their bows, and then end their honeymoon early, he was going to have to do what the Green Arrow taught him to do. Use everything, every martial art he knew and every weapon he could think of, to make sure they would be safe.

And so, he did a perfect roll over a table and he and Thea fought back-to-back against these gang members from Puerto Rico on their goddamned honeymoon.

“Well, at least the walking tour through Old San Juan was fun” hollers Roy, as she backfists one gang member and lands a hook kick on another while he tried to figure out how many steps it was to their room from here.

“We heard classic merengue, and bachata, so that couldn’t have been too bad. Maybe Ollie and Laurel will get to go to someplace like this” responds Thea, using her kendo and kickboxing training to hold off the enemies who were charging her.

Soon, all the Netas fell and Roy made a run for it, Thea right at his side. He wasn’t stupid enough to imagine that that wasn’t the only cell in the hotel looking for him, even if he didn’t know why.

And then, in the lobby of the hallway, he saw it. Roy had been around enough street criminals to know who to fight and who to handle with kid gloves. And this person, standing in front of him with a smirk on his face like he was playing a game only he knew about, was quite obviously a threat. A big one.

Nonetheless, as he glanced at his new bride, that didn’t matter. You didn’t put a hit out on Arsenal, or his wife for that matter, and think nothing would come of it.

(Ricardo Diaz’s POV)

These arrogant children had no idea what they were in for. He had plans, bigger plans than they knew, and to think their annoying and utterly pointless defiance was going to distract him from completing them at the pace he wanted was an annoyance.

So, as they charged him, he sidestepped every blow and then incapacitated them without a thought. Thea got a downward elbow to the jaw, and Roy a 360-degree hook kick. They were unconscious now. For as good as they were, and he had seen enough of them fighting to know they were good, it didn’t matter.

He was going to burn everything around Oliver Queen to the ground. Time for him to get started. 


	5. Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Implied Torture. It serves the plot. It's not just to do it. But it is implied.

**_At an abandoned warehouse in the Glades……_ **

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

(Thea Queen-Harper’s POV)

As she slowly pulled herself out of unconsciousness, Thea Dearden Queen-Harper’s instincts kicked in before she was all the way awake. She looked around this building, having never seen it before, and immediately began to work out an escape route. But then, as her eyes focused in the faint light, she began to realize the true depth of the problem.

She knew who had captured her. Ricardo Diaz had apparently wanted something with the both of them, and he had simply knocked them out and taken them. Knowing they had been beaten like this, humbled and humiliated with no problem, was not something she wanted to dwell on. It hurt. 

But she had been trained to ignore pain, and think her way through a problem. And at its core, that’s all this was. It was just a problem, a thing to be solved and then corrected. Glancing around for a minute, she studied her surroundings. She was in an empty room, with lots of shadows and dark places. She supposed that, if she was feeling reckless, she could escape. But Diaz could be hiding anywhere, and as she came to consciousness, she decided to further analyze her situation before making a decision.

For one, she was handcuffed and chained. Whoever had done this was a professional, trained to ensure that avenues of escape like the ones Oliver had taught her were made functionally meaningless. If not for the fact that she was currently in them, she would find this entire handcuffing setup to be tremendously impressive.

The other thing was that she realized her bow and arrows had been taken from her. It wasn’t like she was helpless without them, nothing quite like that. Instead, it was that 4 years of near-constant training and practice shooting had ingrained in her the mind, the soul, of an archer. It was not something one simply turned off, so it felt like there was a limb missing from her. But she had not been trained in kendo, wing chun, capoeira, and pencak silat just so that she would be powerless without a compound bow, and a quiver full of arrows.

But, she realized, there was something beginning to trickle through her bloodstream. She hadn’t felt this since that battle against Ra’s Al Ghul, when she realized it was like a child fighting a grown man. It was fear.

What was Ricardo Diaz going to do to her? And did Oliver and Laurel know where they were?

(Ricardo Diaz’s POV)

He had studied the two people he had kidnapped. Thea Queen and Roy Harper were no real threat to him. After all, the people they had trained under were people he was going to defeat. And yet, these kids still served a purpose. They still mattered.

You see, Ricardo Diaz held no interest in playing fair. Sure, he could let them go right now and be pretty sure that he’d be getting the fight he wanted. But where was the fun in that? Better to weaken Oliver Queen’s mind, distract him from his tasks, and beat a lesser version of him.

And right now, having his sister and his best-schooled protégé locked up in some abandoned warehouse somewhere was as good a thing to try as any.

For, in addition to training in all the martial arts that could serve him, Ricardo Diaz had studied Oliver Queen. He had watched him, learned his strengths and where he could be most easily outflanked. And at the moment, in this time and place, he remembered the biggest Achilles heel that the Green Arrow had.

Love. It had been love that had convinced him to try a better way. Love that had convinced him to bring Laurel in, and train with her alongside Lady Shiva, Ted Grant, and Nyssa Al Ghul. And it had been, he thought with hate that was growing in him from a small seed to a flower that completely was overtaking every other thought and emotion, the absence of love that had caused their two paths to cross.

So, Ricardo Diaz thought with a snarl, if Oliver Queen defined himself by those he loved, and by his tireless support for them, what would he become if he lost one of them, or thought he did?

Smiling, even whistling a children’s song his mother sang to him back in Cupey Alto, Ricardo Diaz went to a burnished wooden box and grabbed something that he had found from a Shaolin temple in Northern China. The monks there weren’t going to miss a bullwhip. After all, they were too dead to care.

Whipping it against a nearby garbage can, he smirked when Thea started in shock and Roy looked around for what to do next. 

They were scared of him. Good. Because when he was done, their true use to him would become clear.

**_Back in the bunker…._ **

\-----------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Oliver was the love of her life, and her husband. And over five years going through more stress and strife than a married couple ought to, she could say one thing right now with certitude: Oliver Queen was PISSED.

Oliver had dealt with this a year ago, when Adrian Chase had gone after Thea and William, but at least then he had known Chase’s end game. Chase wanted to prove Oliver really was a monster, really was a killer just as he was.

But this? Diaz had stumped him. From everything Shiva had said, from everything he had been able to piece together, Diaz had seemed to want nothing more than to test himself against Oliver’s skills.

It unnerved Laurel, and frankly made her a bit disgusted, to realize that Ricardo Diaz was such a misogynist that he didn’t even conceive of her as someone to come after. But as Thea, and Roy, remained missing, with no one knowing where they were except that they had been taken from their honeymoon by Ricardo Diaz, she realized that was probably a good thing.

For as good as she was, as brilliant a fighter as she was, she wasn’t sure she could beat him. She wasn’t sure that Oliver could, even if they could figure out what the hell Diaz was playing at.

Shiva had told them they couldn’t make friends with him, couldn’t bring him to the light. That was fine. Because some people needed to be put down. 

She was angry, too, she realized. So, she found the obstacle course of dummies and bags that Lady Shiva had put down here and gotten to work. As she moved through her wing chun shapes, and practiced her kicks on a water-filled heavy bag, she remembered what it had been like when she had found Oliver on that dock 6 years ago. The joy that had been in her eyes, and the soul-deep relief in his. After everything he had gone through, and everything she had done to find him, the idea that he was back in her arms, and back in her life, was too good to be true.

And 6 years after that day, she would change nothing. Sure, Oliver had spent most of that first year being darker than she would have preferred. But after the Adam Hunt thing, she had convinced him to not kill. She had explained that doing that would make it harder for people to trust him, harder for people to think he CARED about them.

And then, just as she finished doing her agility ladder work, it dawned on her what Ricardo Diaz wanted. What had brought him here.

Before she could say it out loud, though, the door to the bunker opened and in walked Thea Queen-Harper and Roy Harper.

Knowing Thea and Roy like she did, it didn’t take her longer than a second. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

(Roy Harper’s POV)

Ricardo Diaz had demanded things from him and Thea. Things he couldn’t imagine giving.

So he had fought him, even while handcuffed and bound, with every ounce of his will and discipline. But it hadn’t mattered.

Eventually, with a smile on his face that was mocking and challenging, Ricardo Diaz uncuffed Roy and let him try. Everything he learned, everything Oliver and his fellow trainers taught him, was blocked and parried with the ease of a father playing patty-cake with a toddler. Finally, Roy lost.

And then Ricardo Diaz took from Roy, and Thea, what he had asked for.

Glancing at his wife, knowing that their suffering would be lessened because they were amongst family here, Thea and Roy removed their shirts just to their waists. On their wide backs, muscled and strong from training, were two things that were not there before: a network of whip marks, and 2 tattoos directly in the middle which were, strangely, the same thing. A dragon, black and foreboding, breathing fire and scorching an arsenal of weapons and the Greek god Artemis.

This was a message. Somehow, Ricardo Diaz knew who they were. He had always known. The war had been, officially, declared.


	6. Burning Arrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Rape and Cuckolding. Ricardo Diaz is a monster, after all.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Curtis Holt was running Thea and Roy over with a full-body scanner for anything that Ricardo Diaz could have stashed in them, but Oliver knew that hoping for something to come out of that was a thin hope that would not stand up to the light of day. He was not a nihilistic man, although that could have seemed understandable if you did not know him. Rather, and this was something only Laurel could understand, he refused to believe anything in life, anything worth having, would be easy. It had been that way since the island, and he saw no reason for that to change now. Ricardo Diaz had hidden himself from view, until such a time as he wanted their first meeting to occur.

Knowing that, it gave him some peace when he remembered something small, something mundane, had to be signed and sent back. Turns out Barry Allen and Patty Spivot were getting married in Central City, and their presence had been requested. This was a break he needed, a break he REQUIRED, to feel a bit more like human.

Signing for himself, he closes his eyes for a moment and hands the RSVP over to Laurel. He needs to feel joy again, and maybe this wedding is going to be what he needs.

(Curtis Holt’s POV)

He didn’t mind being around Oliver Queen and Roy Harper usually. Sure, he had to routinely remind himself that he’s married and they’re straight, but getting some high-level eye candy had sure helped to put some heat back in his marriage.

But this? This was different. Roy Harper looked shattered, broken, after he and his love were kidnapped by Ricardo Diaz and had god only knows what done to him. He didn’t want this for him, to have to submit to a scan of his entire body to see if Ricardo Diaz left any presents behind for them.

OH MY GOD. He did. If not for the fact that he was running a magnetic scanner, there’s a real chance he would have missed it. But, in addition to it being small, the placement of it was darkly mocking, almost cruel. In the arsenal of weapons on Roy’s back, was a yumi. That was the bow used by samurai during ancient times, a weapon that they thought themselves even more skilled with than the feared and legendary katana. That bow, built in the old traditions but with modern materials, was the bow Roy Harper used out in the field as Arsenal. That was where there was a small camera and USB drive. 

If not for the fact that everyone on this team had been taught chapter and verse about the history of archery, and the archers on the team got the chance to pick their bows from the multitude of types designed throughout history, there was a real chance Curtis would not have been able to sight it at all. But how to get it out?

“Oliver. Bring me the bourbon, Diggle’s medical kit, and my tools” Curtis said, feeling a bubble of vomit rise in his throat. In just a little while, he would have to perform surgery. And if it was for anyone else, he wouldn’t do it. But this was Roy. It had to get done.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

The things she walked into, sometimes. She had come back from seeing Ted Grant at the hospital, even though he didn’t want to be “fussed over”. Sure, the doctors told her Ted could never throw another kick in anger, but she didn’t believe that. This was Ted “Wildcat” Grant, the first American willing to challenge a Thai fighter in Muay Thai on American soil. If there was anyone in the world who could take a doctor’s rehabilitation advice and go above and beyond, it would be Ted Grant.

Still, though, she headed into the bunker looking to hit the heavy bag, and maybe practice her pencak silat. That style, one she had been informed about by Lady Shiva, seemed to be the sort of thing that she would need if Diaz had an ally, or if the time ever came where he got over his chauvinism and decided to battle her.

So, when she walked into the bunker and saw Roy Harper lying face-down on one of the massage tables biting into a leather strap from a discarded Japanese-style quiver as Curtis Holt removed something from the middle of his back, she knew something had gone drastically wrong. She had been here, offering silent support, when Thea and Roy had been brought in.

And now to see that Diaz had used Roy’s skills, specifically his archery, to try and break the family that they had built here was an insult, and a grave one at that.

If she was being honest with herself, though, Thea and Roy were not her primary concern. Oliver, standing off in the corner holding Roy's bow and looking utterly shattered, was.

She knew, in ways she sometimes wished she didn’t, just how Ollie thought of himself. It had been 6 years of pain, of darkness encroaching on his life a bit of it at a time. But and this she would tell him any time it was that she felt he needed to hear it; he always came through. Sure, most times it was by drawing back and firing his compound bow, but getting through was the important bit. And right now, with his protégé getting something pulled out of his back and his sister more than likely next up, he needed to be reminded that he could get through something like this.

“Ollie? Talk to me?”

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He didn’t have the words. How, precisely, could he? Ricardo Diaz, for reasons he had yet to wrap his head around, had made the decision to confront his friends and family, the people in his life he loved and needed. And all, from everything he could piece together, in service of an attempt to find out who is really the superior fighter. If that is all this was, just some way to have a duel without the expense of making a challenge in an honorable fashion, it was a great disappointment.

Oliver Queen had been trained in archery by masters who could trace their lineages back to the grand dynasties of Asia. And at every turn, as he learned the ways of those country’s legendary archers, he understood what honor was, what it was intended to mean and be. Sure, he thought with a smirk, he utilized a compound bow, not the classic yumi and Korean-style bow. But he was still an archer hoping to live up to those lineages, hoping to show the same honor they did. Now, he realized, he did have the words.

“I’m disappointed. Diaz, it has been made clear, wants a battle with me to determine the superiority of his way over mine. It is perfectly alright that he believes this. He is wrong, of course, but only I know that. But to do this? To assault my family, and your trainer? It is beneath the honor of any respectable martial artist. I cannot wait to battle him” Oliver said, his confidence back.

And then, because of course it works out this way, the proximity alarm at the bunker went off. Someone was standing at the front gate. Ricardo Diaz was here. Time to talk.

**_Outside the bunker…._ **

\------------------------------------------------

It was a driving rainstorm, one of those ones where it seemed like the gods above had decided now would be a fine time to drench the earth. So, of course, this would be when Diaz showed up. Back in the bunker were his arrows and his compound bow. This was not a battle about archery. This was a fight amongst martial artists.

But as Oliver got into a classic Northern Chinese hard stance, Ricardo started talking, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the rain.

“I fear you have not been properly educated, Mr. Queen. Ricardo is my first name, this is true. But my actual last name is not Diaz. To explain the story, I need you to think back to 6 years ago. The first appearance of the Hood” and at that, Oliver blanched. He was beginning to get the sense he knew this story, and if he was right, this was the one sin that he could never forgive himself for.

“6 years ago, you were not the man you are now. 6 years ago, you did not make the same pretenses to morality that you do now. Because 6 years ago, Mr. Queen, you attacked Adam Hunt’s high-rise. I do not much care about Adam Hunt. He is not why I am here. His security team, though, is a different thing.

Do you remember the first man you murdered? I know you consider yourself a warrior, so I know you understand the difference. Killing was what you did to all the security guards before him, in the heat of the moment. A warrior could live with that, could understand what it meant. But what you did to the head of security, Constantine Drakon, **THAT** was murder.

And on that night, even though you did not know it, you set in motion the events that would bring me here. Because while my first name is Ricardo, my last name is, and always has been, Drakon. Your murder of my uncle set in motion your destruction.

But I would have let it go. It would have hurt, but I would have let it go. Until you decided, along with that whelp you call a wife, to try another path. After the Undertaking, when you trained with martial arts masters to ensure you never took another life in cold blood, I knew you would not see reason. You would not regret what you had done, and stop doing it. So, I prepared for this moment, trained in all the styles Lady Shiva had taught you, but by masters who did not share her desire for balance and restraint. Lady Shiva taught you how to fight, to defeat an opponent. My masters taught me to kill. None of them are alive of course.

And then I began with you. I destroyed Ted Grant, the man who started you on this path. I crippled him. I disgraced Thea Queen, and Roy Harper. Your sister and your protégé will never be the same after what I did to them, especially your sister. Did she tell you yet? Did she tell you how I took her in front of Roy Harper, the things I made her admit to? The shame must be all-encompassing for her now.

Every loss you have suffered and will suffer, every ounce of failure and guilt you must now feel, is because of me.

So, Mr. Queen, do you regret it now? Do you understand what you did, and why it matters, now?”

Oliver Queen was dumbfounded. He had forgotten that night, except in his nightmares. And to be reminded of it again, to know that yet another one of his mistakes had brought another wolf to his door, was not something he could abide.

“Furthermore, Mr. Queen, your defeat is coming. But not on a battlefield like this. I want no excuses, no belief that the muddy ground and cold temperatures could have hindered you in any way. 2 weeks from now, we will meet again. We will battle. And, when you fall before me, I will not murder you as you murdered my uncle.

I will do what I did to those you claim to love. I will leave you embarrassed.”

And with that, Ricardo Diaz walks off and Oliver Queen holds strong until he leaves. Until he can no longer see him.

And then, for the first time since Tommy’s death, the unassailable Green Arrow, the master of will and determination, breaks. He sobs. He can’t stop.

**_WHAT HAS HE DONE?_ **


	7. A Break From Fire Pt 1: Getting The Flash Off The Board

**_In the bunker in Starling City…._ **

\--------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

His little brother was getting married, and Oliver couldn’t be happier. Laurel, Thea, and Roy were already packed and waiting upstairs for him before they took a private taxi to their private jet and headed out to Central City. No one could know how it was that Oliver Queen, CEO of Queen Consolidated, actually knew Barry Allen.

But, and this was something Oliver would never have dreamed of saying five years ago, Barry’s friendship was good for him. With all he had suffered through, and what he was dealing with now, it felt good to know that there was someone around who understood his struggles. Laurel did, he knew, but he needed the distance from his wife to really get into things like this. He knew Laurel understood that, as there were things, and burdens, she let go with Lady Shiva, or Nyssa Raatko, that she simply could not let him know existed.

And as he packed his compound bow, a 60-arrow quiver, and prepared to head upstairs, the Green Arrow looked back at his bunker and smiled. Oliver Queen would be gone, but the city would still be protected.

**_Meanwhile, on the edge of Starling City…._ **

\--------------------------------------------------------

In the tall grasses just outside the city, the Green Lantern and Lady Shiva shared a glance. Theirs was a unique relationship, as their bond was cemented by the real knowledge that without them, the bravest warriors they had ever met would not be nearly as competent and appreciated as they were. It had been John Diggle who, after Oliver’s rough 1st year under the hood, joined Oliver in training with Ricardo Diaz and Lady Shiva. But the reason he was joining Oliver was not 100% just to become a better fighter, although he supposed he’d become that. Rather, he was going to learn all that he could to be properly ready to do what Oliver needed him to do.

Oliver needed a sparring partner who could keep up with him no matter how skilled he became. It was that old tale about iron sharpening iron, after all. But Oliver needed more than just martial skill. So, he hatched a plan. It was a risky plan, because John Diggle had absolutely no doubt that Lady Shiva could, and would, kill him if she didn’t like what he was coming up with. But when he explained it, she understood.

So, after their martial arts training, John Diggle took Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, and Lady Shiva through a crash-course on everything he had learned as a bodyguard and a special forces officer. If Shiva would train their bodies to be martially ready, Diggle would work on their minds and their instincts.

And, the most fearsome woman he had ever seen became a sort of battle ally. Their friendship was different than any he had ever known. Theirs was the kind of relationship where they could not see each other for months, but understood each other totally.

And, with their two pupils gone to celebrate a wedding and be Laurel Lance and Oliver Queen instead of the Black Canary and Green Arrow, the teachers would step into the stead.

The Green Lantern and Lady Shiva nodded, and got changed in silence. Work was to begin, words didn’t matter.

**_Meanwhile, in Central City at the 4 Seasons Hotel and Spa…._ **

\---------------------------------------------

(Thea Queen-Harper’s POV)

She had suffered a lot, she knew. Watching her mother die in front of her, and then having to be the one who set the trap for Malcolm Merlyn to be apprehended and put in a super-max prison. But this? This felt worse.

To be subjected to what that monster put her through, and to have to just live with it knowing that her love was there and heard it all, left her feeling very much like her soul, her essence, everything that made her who she was had just been pulled out of her. She didn’t like this feeling, didn’t like the sense that if you tapped on any part of her you would hear a hollow empty sound.

But what she HATED? It was that a part of her, a part that was bigger than she would have liked, blamed Roy for it. If he had just been a better fighter, if he had been able to fight Ricardo Drakon off and knock him out, none of this would have happened. But what was worse is that Roy was just as ashamed, just as guilty, as she was. She honestly felt like if he hated her for it, hated her for surrendering her honor so easily, things would be better. But to know that they were both suffering through something made the pain harder.

In this moment, though, she knew she needed to talk to someone. And at that exact moment, someone showed up.

(Barry Allen’s POV)

Barry needed a break from wedding planning. It was great that Patty, and Iris, and Joe were so interested in getting this to look perfect. He knew, in his heart and soul, she deserved all the love he could give her, and she would get it. But he could not care less about where the flowers were, and who would be seated with whom.

And rather than snap to his wife about it, they had an unspoken conversation and the Flash took a long run through Central City, the unspoken third woman in their relationship. He would always love it here, would always love the green grass and sunny days you seemed to find here deep into November, and the way that it felt like a small-town while still having all the creature comforts one needed now. The Wi-Fi here was EXCELLENT, for one thing. As he put it together in his own mind, this was a place you could grow old, a place you could start a family. It didn’t need an avenger, someone to cleanse the filth from it. It needed a protector, someone to watch over it and keep everyone here safe. As good as Joe and Iris were for him, Patty was the one who understood what he needed to be. Hell, she had been hit by that 2nd particle accelerator explosion and met up with him in the speed force where they both realized that they had powers. They were working on finding the sweet spot between being lovers and protectors. In his heart, in his soul, he knew they’d get there.

But, with his wedding the next morning, he needed to see some people who understood the value of protecting their city just as he did. So, without even thinking of it, he sprinted over to where everyone else who was coming in for the wedding was. He smiled as he realized that, for the wider community of superheroes and superheroines, this was as close to a royal wedding as any of them were going to get. Oliver and Laurel would have won the title, but the routine havoc of the place where they did their work made it so that a big pageantry-filled wedding was never really in the cards.

Firing through the front door of the Four Seasons hotel and spa fast enough that no one figured out he was there; Barry used the fact that his eyes moved at somewhere past light speed to soak every inch of who was here in his memory. And then, at precisely that moment, he saw something he didn’t want to see. Thea Queen-Harper, sad.

It had been one of the more amusing parts about his yearly treks to Starling City, honestly. Thea had none of the same Shinto-esque stoicism about being a hero that Oliver, John, and Laurel did. After all, he thought, wasn’t this supposed to be FUN?

There was something wrong, then, about seeing Thea sad. He couldn’t take it. More so than even Thawne, or whatever trap Devoe was laying for him, the idea that someone he cared about could be suffering and he wouldn’t help was the worst pain he could feel. So, with all the positivity and joy he could muster up, he stopped right in front of Artemis and smiled.

(Thea Queen-Harper’s POV)

It was always so weird to understand that she knew the Fastest Man Alive. They had met during that whole weird-ass Vandal Savage business and had become fast friends ever since. It was always kind of cool the way that he just seemed to enjoy doing what he was doing. Thea had been forced into this, obligated to do it when the League of Assassins had appeared in her life and she had to know who her older brother was in order to survive. Barry, on the other hand, was different. He was an inspiration, someone who made it seem like even the greatest pain imaginable could be overcome with work ethic and will.

Even knowing that, she was still worried. Sure, he was like a human ray of sunshine and hope. But she couldn’t share what she was going through with him, could she? He was a friend from work, he didn’t need to know anything about this.

Before she could make herself say no to him, the person she was thinking of as a puppy in human form slid into a chair right behind her. He then, with no guile in him at all, asked the one question that she knew would release the flood she had been trying with all her heart and soul to hold back.

(Barry Allen’s POV)

“Are you ok, Thea?”

(Thea Queen-Harper’s POV)

No, she was **NOT** okay. Not even a little bit. But this wasn’t just about her complete and utter inability to put even a manicured fingertip on Ricardo Drakon. It was that she had been walking around with this hole in her chest for weeks, and everyone was looking at her like they were expecting some shoe to drop, some thing to be said that would finally shine some light on what she had been going through.

“Have you ever felt helpless, like no matter how hard you fought or whatever you tried, it wasn’t going to be enough?”

(Barry Allen’s POV)

He could answer **THAT** question with complete honesty. Even now, 2 years after it happened, he still remembers the feeling of suddenly being slower than someone he was fighting. He still remembers being drug around his city, his _HOME_ , like a dead mouse in the jaws of a cat and being shown off to everyone he loved, everyone who knew his secret and what he really was, for the loser he had been.

It wasn’t like Thawne, who had ingratiated himself in his life to the point where he didn’t want to really hurt Barry. Hunter Zolomon was different. He had crippled Barry, shown the world the weaknesses of the Flash, and turned him into something he could not stand being: powerless.

So, he realized without any hint of happiness for the remembering, he did know what it was like to be helpless.

“Zoom” was all he had to say, and he hoped that was enough.

(Thea Queen-Harper’s POV)

Oh, of course. She had been so in her own head, so thinking about her own pain, that she forgot the Zoom thing. She had been down in the bunker when News 52 broke in with live coverage of it. To see Barry, someone so full of life and joy, being treated in the way he was made them all deeply pained. Felicity and Thea wept. Diggle visibly staggered, and slumped into a chair before uttering the lord’s prayer for lack of something else to do. Oliver turned away from it, forcing himself not to weep with all the willpower he could possibly muster up.

Laurel, who had met Barry in Starling City first and then in Central later, walked outside into the rainy street and screamed in grief and unarticulated rage until her throat was nearly raw. Everyone, EVERYONE, hurt seeing that. They knew, on an intellectual level, that being as fast as Barry was meant that there would always someone who wanted to test their speed against his. They got that. It was a weird, but entirely familiar, cousin of the notion that any great martial artist would be expecting challengers. But, this? THIS? Somehow this felt worse, because they knew they couldn’t help at all.

“How did you get over it?”

She hoped he could answer this question, give her some peace of mind that she wasn’t always going to feel like this.

(Barry Allen’s POV)

And that, right there, was the question. Had he ever really gotten over it? He supposed, thinking on it for the first time in 2 years, he was unsure of how to answer. Sure, he didn’t wake up in cold sweats thinking of it anymore. That was an improvement.

But he didn’t think he could ever forget it. It had changed him in ways he knew were for the best. The version of the Flash who had fought Zoom was prideful and arrogant, thinking he knew everything he needed to. In that way, he supposed, it had been good for him.

“You never get over it. Even now, two years after, the anniversary of that day doesn’t sneak up on me. I doubt that it ever will. But I can move on from it, to know what happened and not plunge myself into grief and rage thinking about it. All you can do, all I did, is learn to live with it. Rely on the people in your life who will be there for you. I know you, Thea, and you’re strong. And the day will come, sooner than you think, when you can stand up on your own two feet. Until then, if you can’t stand, we’ll stand for you.”

(Thea Queen-Harper’s POV)

“That works for me, Barry. Thank you.”

**_Meanwhile in a dive bar in Central City…._ **

\---------------------------------------------------------

Over a glass of cheap bourbon, a deal was being consummated.

“In 36 hours, I need you to distract the Flash. Beating him isn’t important, even though I know you can. Taking him off the board, while I do what I came here to do, is” said Ricardo Diaz.

“Always a pleasure to do business with you, Mr. Diaz” said Eobard Thawne.


	8. The Final Insult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Cuckolding.

**_At STAR Labs 3 days before Barry Allen and Patty Spivot’s wedding…._ **

\--------------------------------------------------

(Cisco Ramon’s POV)

There were times when his life was just too awesome. But, right now, he didn’t think anything that he could have done beat this. He was the best man for a superhero royal wedding. How cool was his life?

Furthermore, STAR Labs was going to be kind of like a superhero campground for the days leading up to the wedding. Sure, no one was sleeping here. THANK GOD. The less he knew about Mick Rory sleeping in the nude, and using the heat gun Cisco had invented to make some abominable affront against hot chocolate, the better. But everyone was leaving their gear here under thumb-printed and DNA-matched lock and key. For the Lance-Raatko’s and the Lance-Queen’s, that meant approximately $75,000 worth of high-end bows, katana from the last Ashikaga shogunate, and rare tungsten staffs.

The look on Nyssa Al-Ghul’s face last year when she unsheathed her blade, and explained in her typically clipped and perfectly-formed English that it was a blade capable of cutting through 6 bodies should she need it to, was not something he wanted to have directed at him. So, he got everyone’s fingerprints and created locks that would only open for them.

Besides, if his wife ever figured out he let any of their cool toys get stolen again, he’d be sleeping in a bed made of ice. He was sure of that.

**_Meanwhile, in the skies over Central City……_ **

\-------------------------------------------------------------

(Kara Danvers-Schott’s POV)

Everyone has their own way to relax, to get out of their own head when they need to. From their brief time on each other’s earths, she knew Barry Allen and Patty Spivot were probably running around Central City snacking from food trucks and rescuing kittens from trees. (Side note: She really does have to try that donut place Barry told her about before she has to go back to her earth. Salted Caramel Chocolate cake donut? Yes please!)

J’onn took that really awesome old car out for long drives. Alex cleaned guns, read magazines about guns, and was eagerly anticipating meeting Cisco so she could get some new revolvers smithed. But for her? She flew. It was just a place to be free. Up here, she didn’t need to be the Girl of Steel, or a hero to people throughout the United States and the World. Up here, she didn’t have to be an object of admiration. Admittedly, there were things about that last bit she kind of liked. She had been on a number of USO tours, and even posed for pin-ups that went in the lockers of sailors and soldiers. That she didn’t much mind. As she thought of it, these were people risking their lives to do good in the world without superpowers. If they felt like they needed some eye candy to make the job less like drudgery, she understood that.

And right now, even though she wasn’t going to admit it, her own job felt like drudgery. Even as she was soaking in sun, feeling her powers sparkle and crackle, she couldn’t help but remember what it felt like to be _BATTERED_.

That’s what Reign had done to her. More so than just the beating she had taken, although that was massive, it was the way people looked at her now. Like she wasn’t strong enough to save them anymore. She thought that of herself sometimes too, now. She needed, and this was odd to think, a fight against an opponent who could test her. A way to prove that she was still the champion of National City, and the Girl of Steel.

And then, she heard it.

The sound of someone demanding a fight.

**_At the Central City 4 Seasons…._ **

\------------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

She had spent 6 years as the Black Canary, and a lifetime learning how to fight and defend herself via teachers as varied in skill and temperament as her childhood karate teacher Master Dinkins and Lady Shiva, the greatest hand-to-hand fighter to ever draw breath. And every step of the way, at every teacher’s knee, she had learned something. Right now, though, the biggest lesson she could remember was to be prepared.

She knew that the Barry Allen\Patty Spivot wedding was going to have a few things that her dream wedding to Oliver wouldn’t, couldn’t, have. For one, she imagined that there would be no way the food budget would be even remotely similar. She had been there when Barry had his connection to the speed force restored, and Patty’s created, and it still stunned her to see the sheer amount of food they could consume. An entire rack of St. Louis-style baby back ribs, 2 pitchers of blueberry sweet tea, and salted caramel brownies was a regular weeknight meal. So it didn’t seem too far out of bounds that they would have a wedding spread that was truly expansive. Sure, they had promised that anything they didn’t consume would be spread throughout the food pantries in the area. But still, the idea that their food budget was the GDP of a mid-sized European country was not something that they could ever imagine having in their own wedding.

But, after all, it was expected. The Flash and Cobalt Blue’s wedding was the stuff of a certain type of tabloid’s dream, so the announcement of everything from the spread to where it was being held had been breathlessly done. People knew that the Green Arrow, and Black Canary, were attending. They knew that Vibe, and Killer Frost, were the best man and maid of honor. They didn’t know about the Multiverse, because explaining THAT was going to be a headache no one wanted. You would have to be wholly reckless, or utterly convinced of your own majestic skill level, to even try something here.

Despite that, and knowing that everyone who orbited in the universe of superheroes that they were now in also knew that, Laurel was prepared. She kept a pair of handwraps, and a mouthpiece, in every clutch she held. All of her dresses had been lovingly altered by first Felicity Smoak, and later Curtis Holt, so that she could utilize the full breadth and depth of her martial arts skills. The life that she would have had without this knowledge, being this person, is not something she wanted to think about.

And then, she saw the Flash freak out.

(Barry Allen’s POV)

There was a lot about being a speedster that he did not think normal people would understand. But, and this one was key to his current understanding of his situation, he could feel the negative speed force all around him. Every speedster he knew shared this power, even if the way they felt them was different. To hear Wally and Jesse explain it, it was the equivalent of hearing police sirens come up from behind you when you knew you did nothing wrong. For him and Patty, it was like the smell of something slightly off.

And right now, 48 hours before his wedding, the idea that it was THERE was not something he wanted to deal with. So, finishing his vows and handing them to a concierge to have them brought back up to his room, the Scarlet Speedster glanced around to make sure no one was looking and then sprinted into STAR Labs to put on his suit and kiss his wife before heading to the loading dock.

(Kara Danvers-Schott’s POV)

FINALLY. Flying to the loading dock, she smiled when se saw…. _HIM_.

Every superhero who had experience with aliens knew of _HIM_. He was the guy that collected people, and didn’t much care how many broken bones or lost pints of blood came with the collection. But, as far as she remembered, he was an Earth-38 problem.

That meant that, somewhere, there was some high-powered intellect orchestrating things to distract her. But she couldn’t concern herself with that. Barry was here, in his new suit and his eyes glowing with goldenrod-colored lightning, so that had to mean Thawne was here. He’d be the only one Barry would be able to say would make himself willing to be here. She knew, before too long, that the Green Arrow and the Black Canary would be here. They loved Barry like a brother, and would stand with him against any and all enemies.

If there was going to be a fight, and it very much looked like there was about to be one, she could think of no better comrades, no better **friends**.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

When Supergirl flew by at the speed of sound, it was a little worrying. Not crazy, though. It was entirely likely that she was just heading to a taco truck, or to play hopscotch with some kids at a playground. He liked Kara, and admired her, but she had the occasional penchant for being a big kid in a blonde bombshell’s body.

But then when Barry Allen got up, and sprinted out the front door, that got him thinking. So, glancing at his wife and field partner, they knew what they had to do. Texting Cisco Ramon, they waited for the breach to Star Labs and immediately grabbed their weapons. A compound bow, 60-arrow quiver, and katana for Oliver, and escrima sticks for Laurel. She still had her cry after all.

Knowing where they had to go, Cisco sent them back through. War had been declared at a friend’s wedding. This, more than anything, would be an insult that would be paid back in the only sort of legal tender that could be useful: contusions and broken bones.

**_On the 4 Seasons Loading Dock….._ **

\---------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

And so, here they all stood. Supergirl, The Flash, The Green Arrow, and the Black Canary. They had been battling enemies of all shapes, sizes, races, and creeds for long enough that nothing shook them. They were warriors of high caliber, trained by the best minds in both fighting skill and tactics.

So, when the sources of their problems arrived, they were not shaken, but rather quite annoyed.

Descending into the middle of the dock on a grappling cable, unsheathing a double-edged sword that looked like a Chinese jian and nocking an arrow from her jet-black PSE Chaos AD Compound bow, Talia Al Ghul stood right in front of the Black Canary as Eobard Thawne did the same for the Flash, crimson lightning flowing behind his eyes as he snarls in hatred.

Off to the side, his eyes glinting in a berzerker’s rage and seeming to find something he enjoys, is Lobo as he squares off with Supergirl. But the main event? The particular star of this show? The chessmaster who put it all together? He is, precisely, nowhere to be found. And it’s **_KILLING_** the Green Arrow.

And then, behind Talia and Thawne, he saw the other half of the gambit. Columns, literal Roman columns, of soldiers. And at the back, refusing to lead from the front in another stab to Oliver’s sense of honor, is Ricardo Diaz. He can’t help but think of him as Diaz now, even though he knows the man’s name is different.

At this moment, he sees what Diaz truly is: a coward. A real warrior, someone worthy of the skills he undoubtedly has, would be demanding to lead from the front, demanding to prove he could stand against his enemies. But not this Diaz.

Then, like someone turning on the light in a darkened room, he sees it.

Diaz wants to fatten him up, make him show all of his skills and techniques before their promised duel. Well, the Green Arrow thought, it was time to show him what he was actually capable of.

And with a simple wink to his wife, the battle was on. Eobard and the Flash sped off throughout the city, and Supergirl and Lobo went into the skies. That left Laurel and Oliver, at least for the moment, alone against Talia Al Ghul and literal brigades of highly-trained martial artists.

Does this sound like a mismatch? **_OH PLEASE._**

As Supergirl and Lobo brawled in the sky, crashing through honeymoon suites and finally ending up in a glazier’s office on the outskirts of town, Eobard Thawne and the Flash sped through the city, trading punches and insults at equal speed. Barry wanted this to be over, wanted the claws of Eobard Thawne off of him so bad, that he wasn’t going to stop until Thawne left his life forever.

Meanwhile, Oliver got in a classic Thai boxing stance as Laurel got in a very traditional Eagle Claw wushu stance and they both moved to fight. Laurel worked on Talia’s goons, dispatching them with beautifully flowing combinations of kicks and short strikes that looked less like Wushu and more like the martial equivalent of classical music being played. Some people hit like thunder, and they moved like rampaging bulls. Laurel was different.

She hit like thunder, true, but moved with the grace and beauty of a runway model or a flamenco dancer. And with her long, and powerful, limbs she was never too far away to land a kick, or a punch. Truly, the Black Canary was a terrifying opponent. 

While that was going on, the Green Arrow was doing what HE did best: overwhelming force. If Laurel was like an artist, calmly devastating from the outside, Oliver was a thunderstorm. When he wasn’t landing sniper-quality shots with trick arrows, specifically taser and buckshot-loaded arrows designed to wound and injure but not kill, Oliver was using pencak silat, muay thai, and hapkido to break bones, bust noses, and generally prove a point.

Oliver Jonas Queen was not now, nor was he ever, a man to be FUCKED WITH. If you did, if you decided to poke that bear, this would be your reminder of what would happen. And with every blow he landed, his eyes never left Diaz. Without saying a single word, he was making it clear.

“If you fuck with me, I will find you. I will meet you at the door of wherever I do find you, and I will break your bones” he was communicating to Diaz, who was doing something really interesting. 

Every time it seemed like Laurel and Oliver cleared out a row of guys, whether it be from the League of Shadows or just random mooks hired by Diaz, Diaz took a step back of the exact same row. He didn’t want the fight now, that was clear. But he was tempting Oliver, wanting him to over-extend himself.

Finally, though, it was just them. Oliver and Laurel against Talia and Diaz.

Laurel and Oliver were tired, but ready. This had been going on long enough. Talia had been a problem for a year specifically, and a thorn in Ollie’s side for 5 years. She reminded him of everything he no longer wanted to be, everything Laurel’s love had convinced him he didn’t **_HAVE_** to be.

Standing in a traditional Tiger-style Kung Fu stance, as Oliver stands in a lethwei stance which draws a raised eyebrow from Laurel, the Green Arrow and Black Canary get ready only to see Ricardo Diaz pull out a smoke grenade and a remote control.

“One more week, Green Arrow. In the meantime, check on your family. What’s left of it” said Diaz before throwing the smoke pellet and leaving with Talia on a grappling arrow before Oliver could even fire a counter-shot.

Feeling a vibration in the pocket of his suit, the Green Arrow reached for his phone and crumbled. This was what Diaz had done. What he had made Thea admit to.

He was going to KILL him.

**_At STAR Labs….._ **

\-----------------------------------

(Thea Queen-Harper’s POV)

When the battle at the hotel had started, Cisco had sent out a full alert. The Legends showed up, along with Caitlin Snow, herself, and Roy. If there was going to be a brawl through the streets, the defenders of Central City, Starling City, Earth-38, and time itself would be there to provide support.

But that wasn’t necessary. The Quartet, as Cisco was thinking of them while still openly admitting to workshopping a better nickname, had it all handled. But then, everyone’s phones started ringing. And instantly, despite her best efforts, she felt the chill and the hollowness come back. Everyone, all of her friends and peers, were about to see her weakest moment, her greatest shame.

**_3 weeks ago in an abandoned warehouse in the Glades……_ **

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Tell me!”

“I….”

“TELL ME!”

“I….”

“TELL ME, OR I KILL YOUR HUSBAND!”

“You’re better than him. You’re the best sex I’ve ever had in my life. I hate you. I wish you were dead. But I can’t lie. You’re the best sex I’ve ever had. And Roy isn’t. He can’t be.”

“So do you want more?”

“I….”

“TELL ME!”

“YES! GOD HELP ME, YES! I DON’T EVER WANT YOU TO STOP FUCKING ME!”

**_Back at Star Labs…._ **

\--------------------------------------

Oliver Queen was there. He was hugging his sister, telling her it would be ok. But the whole time, he was planning on murdering Ricardo Diaz.

One week could not feel any longer than it did right now.


	9. The Dragon Wins

**_In the bunker in Starling City…._ **

\------------------------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Lady Shiva had taken her leave, the only way anyone had known she was even there being in the form of a small dent in one of their wing chun dummies. But to be honest, they had bigger worries. A wing chun dummy could be replaced. As a point of fact, John Diggle was currently on the phone with a local woodshop to get one replaced according to their standing order.

Right now, though, everyone’s eyes were doing a terrible job of avoiding Oliver Queen. It had been a week like had been promised, and yet Ricardo Drakon wasn’t here. For all the dishonorable, and disgusting, tactics he had used up to this point, nobody genuinely thought he wouldn’t show up. He had gone too far to get to this duel, and apparently made too many allies, to just not have it when the time came.

But they also knew he was a man who liked his advantages. Right now, though, he didn’t need a special arena, or rules designed to benefit only him. Because at this moment, Oliver was angry. Too angry to think. Too angry to focus.

And, most importantly for Ricardo Drakon, too angry to fight with the balance he would need to defeat someone who was clearly as good as Ricardo Drakon was.

It had always been one of her roles, alongside John Diggle, to be the sober head when Oliver’s Persian flaw revealed itself. That flaw, the one thing that always seemed to get them in a position of trouble, was his temper. She didn’t fault him for it, not really. With all he had lost in the decade since the Queen’s Gambit sank, it would be a miracle if he wasn’t angrier than most. But when it became an issue was when that anger, that need to make those whom were doing the city and the world harm, affected his judgment. And right now, that anger led him to do something she had never seen him do before.

He was over-training. His anger over what Drakon had been doing, the pain and misery over what had happened to Thea, Roy, and Ted Grant, had caused him to retreat into the weight room and the dojo. And if she couldn’t pull him out, couldn’t make him see reason, she knew what would happen. Ricardo Drakon would breathe fire, and he would scorch the body of the Green Arrow.

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Ever since this whole business with Drakon had begun, he was waiting for this day. Sure, Shiva had made it clear to him when this whole business started that Drakon was her equal. But he didn’t much care. He had done surprisingly well against Shiva when they fought, and he had no reason to expect that this would be any different. After all, he had 6 years of schooling from the best martial artists around and real-world training that this Drakon character could only imagine. Sure, he was angry. But anger had guided him through LaCroix and Prometheus. What did Drakon have, what COULD Drakon have, that would worry him more than those 2 men had done? There was no time, no reason, to relax. Drakon had done enough. It was time for him to pay for it. 

And then, as Oliver contemplated and taped up his hands in the old techniques taught to him by Ted Grant’s uncle who had trained old Mexican boxers in the 1970’s, all the finely-tuned communications equipment in the bunker slowly began to crackle to life as a mechanical-sounding voice read off coordinates again and again.

Oliver knew where that was. It was the William F. Devin Federal Building. It took him a moment to see the symbolism, to notice the trap, and when he did he had to admire Drakon’s cunning.

Across the street, the only man he had ever murdered. He could see the difference in his own mind, twist it into his own voice.

Killing was something you did in the heat of the battle. “Prosecute the target as needed, Mr. Queen” he remembered Amanda Waller saying, and that little sentence was all he needed to remember from the 5 years he had been away.

Murder, though, was different. Murder was plotted, planned in the cold light of day, and anyone who did it knew what they were doing.

If Drakon wanted vengeance for his uncle, he could try and get it. And he supposed that this building was as good a place as any.

**_At the William F. Devin Federal Building……_ **

\---------------------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV) 

So here they stood. The Dragon, calm and almost statue-like as he stood in a stance that gave no hint as to what style he was going to fight with, and the Green Arrow. For his part, Oliver was in a Northern Chinese hard stance, ready to do damage with every blow as he had been trained to do for 6 years. There were no bows, no signs of respect. Too much had been done, too many lines had been irrevocably crossed, to even pay lip-service to the idea of this being a duel between equals. This was a fight.

And then, Ricardo Drakon did the one thing no one expected him to do. He struck first, with a flurry of fast ridge-hand strikes that put him in mind of Tang So Doo that Oliver struggled to block and suddenly realized that his opponent was far faster than nay of them had expected. Going for a counter in the form of a blind hook kick Oliver then suddenly found himself guarding against classic attacks from the Eagle-Claw kung-fu form. He was fighting a machine, Oliver realized, someone with the skills to smoothly counter everything that he could come up with by adapting his offense to the style he was being shown.

But then he remembered that Yao Fei, his first teacher, had shown him the basics of Eagle-Claw. This was a battle he could fight on even ground, and so he would.

And as he attacked using the techniques Yao Fei had taught him, and those Shiva and Richard Dragon had polished to a fine sheen, he began to notice something. He was throwing the strikes as perfect as he ever had, and yet Drakon was moving just out of the reach of them all. Soon, despite himself, Oliver began to get tired. His blows, once tight and sharp, began to loop and hook. And yet, still, nothing landed.

This, he realized, was the exact way all those who dueled with the masters of the past must have felt. But as he thought of it, using whatever strength he had left, he realized it was worse. This was not a duel, or a sparring session where he could throw in the towel. This was a fight, and it hurt to realize that it was a fight he was losing. It had been a trap Drakon had set, every step of the way since he announced his arrival, and the Green Arrow had walked right into it.

But as Drakon began to land strike after strike, and Oliver began to feel the lights go out, he knew this was not the end. He might have lost this battle, but the war was not over. He would make sure of that.

(Ricardo Drakon’s POV)

The Green Arrow, the unassailable, unconquerable god amongst men, had been defeated. He knew his allies were watching, knew that at his signal the final step of the plan would be laid out. And before they got to work, Ricardo figured it would only be right to tell Oliver what his city would be in for while he slept.

“Oliver? I know you can’t hear me, so I’m making sure the rest of your team can. I’ve beaten you, now. You can’t deny it.

But I’m not finished. You took my family from me that night, everyone I loved. So I’m going to do the same to you. I’ve already done it with your sister and your best student. They’ll _**NEVER**_ be the same.

All that’s left now is your legacy, the things you’re proudest of. In the coming days, everything you fought so hard to keep will be destroyed. The respect of your peers, the love of your city, and even the memories of your parents. All of them will burn.

Sorry, Oliver. But in the end, you just weren’t strong enough.”


	10. Clipped Wings

**_At the Quiver……_ **

\------------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

The Green Arrow was unconscious. Just saying that out loud felt wrong, and dirty. It was a betrayal of everything Oliver had made himself, the implacable force of determination made flesh and bone. But it was true. Ricardo Diaz, the Dragon, had burned the Green Arrow where he stood. It had been as easy as breathing, and now Oliver wasn’t.

They had both trained extensively over the entire time they had been apart, and the entire time they had been together, and precisely something like this had never happened. Sure, there were cousins of it. What Slade had done to them, under the influence of Mirakuru, was not a memory she particularly wanted to reveal. But that had been, in its way, honorable. Slade had not touched Thea, not harmed a hair on her head. All she had been told was that Oliver was lying to her, and it took every ounce of Laurel’s kindness to explain that Oliver could not have his family be harmed by knowing he was the Green Arrow. But that, for as hard as it was, was not this. Oliver had been destroyed, had been set upon by an opponent who held honor cheap, and it enraged her in a way she didn’t know she could feel. They were samurai, and their daimyo was Starling City. They served this place, and would until the city finally was strong enough to let them put their weapons down and rest.

But she was beginning to realize that the dream they had, the dream they shared, was almost done. All it would take to see it fulfilled was them walking into one more crucible, and that crucible had a name.

So, as John Diggle kept watch over her husband and his brother, Laurel Lance looked down at her hands and realized she was shaking. The love of her life, the man she wanted to grow old with, was beaten. Defeated. She knew what she had to do, what saving their city required. Not for the first time, and most definitely not for the last, the Black Canary flew with a purpose, a responsibility. She would guard her husband’s legacy, and protect his goals.

(John Diggle’s POV)

He knew what Laurel was planning to do. They all KNEW. And even now, with a Green Lantern ring that enabled him to build anything his willpower could come up with, he couldn’t will a way out of this for Laurel. He just couldn’t.

He had been there for the both of them for 6 years. And in those 6 years they had faced opponents no one thought they could beat, and he wanted to believe that Ricardo Diaz would have been no different. But the unconscious body of Oliver Queen was changing that perception. He was beginning to think that, as much as it personally pained him to come to this decision, Ricardo Diaz was special. He was as good a fighter as Oliver had been, and a much better tactician than anyone they had fought up to now. And considering that last year they had to deal with a Talia Al-Ghul-trained Adrian Chase, who had been briefed on everything from the multiverse to every one of Ollie’s weak spots and triggers for nightmares, that was saying something.

He didn’t want to see Laurel go out and fight that man. At least, not like this.

“Laurel. If you fight Diaz now, as you are right now, you will lose. We saw Oliver try to fight that man angry and he lost completely. I’ve seen what happens when a combatant tries to put too much on their plate all at once.”

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Didn’t he understand? She loved Oliver with every cell in her body, every fiber in her being. She had to do this, had to be what he needed. So many times, he had protected her, told her that her love and respect was the only thing he truly needed. And now, when he was beaten and needed to be avenged, his brother was telling her she had to wait? She didn’t understand.

And then, like a fog lifting and seeing a boat heading towards the shoreline, she saw it. Oliver had been angry when he fought Diaz, and had not prepared for him the way he should have. When it was done, he had paid for that insolence. If she wanted to defend her city, and stop the madman who was threatening it, she needed to be ready. So, she walked into the private meditation room they had built together and closed the door. If Ricardo Diaz would be stopped, it would not be by someone looking for vengeance. Ollie had done that, and he had failed.

Just thinking that, making her mind form the words, felt like a betrayal. Ollie was many things to her. He was the love of her life, and the father of the children they both knew they were going to have. And he was a pillar of strength, not just to her community but to HER. It hurt to know what she would have to do for him, but it also filled her with pride.

They had fought to save their city, and Oliver had been given that mission as a holy charge. To honor that mission, and give him a present when he woke, she would stop the Dragon who was poised to breathe fire over their city.

But if Oliver’s sins had happened at the building where Diaz’s uncle had been murdered, where precisely had hers taken place?

 ** _At Walter Jones Courthouse_** ….

\--------------------------------------------------------

(Helena Bertinelli’s POV)

Diaz had gotten her out of federal prison, and all he had asked for in exchange for that kindness was to deliver nothing of the sort to Laurel Lance. It had been here where Laurel had taken away from her the only thing she had ever wanted.

It wasn’t anything grand, like a lost love. Her only chance at love had died when Michael had. What she wanted was revenge, and Laurel had taken that from her. She could still remember it. Helena had a crossbow bolt loaded with Co2 aimed at his heart, and Laurel had stepped in to stop her. With all the Pollyanna certitude of youth, Laurel Lance had informed Helena that “justice should not be done this way”. And, foolishly, Helena had listened and lowered her crossbow.

The rage she felt when her father had been murdered in a prison riot had become a thick covering over her entire soul, literally wrapping itself around her body until she could not envision any part of herself without it. Michael had died, and she hadn’t been able to avenge him. That was all she had ever wanted. And now she could get it, if only in a slightly different way than she had first thought. Ricardo Diaz had given her the greatest gift ever. Now to make sure it gets opened.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Not knowing what else to do, Laurel had gone on patrol. The city’s crime wouldn’t sleep while this was going on, and besides, maybe she’d get lucky and see Diaz. Luck and her hadn’t exactly been close friends over 6 years, but maybe she could see if they could get acquainted now.

So, she headed off. There had been rumors of people synthesizing Vertigo near the courthouse, so she wanted to see if that was true. She knew she could at least hold them off, but all the same, she fired off a quick text back to the bunker so that John Diggle knew to fly over if she didn’t respond in 30 minutes.

But as she got near the courthouse, parking her goldenrod-colored Ducati 999R in a nearby alley, she got the 2nd greatest surprise of this entire year. The 1st was no real great shock, but this was. This undoubtedly was. Standing on the courthouse steps, holding the same crossbow she had 4 years ago, was Helena Bertinelli. And at that precise moment, she knew there was no one around synthesizing Vertigo. It had been Diaz, using the whisper networks and back-channels that she and Ollie had constructed to draw her to this exact place to pay for her own sins. If not for the fact that it was directed against her, she would have applauded the elegance of the gambit. But no matter.

Helena had always been a problem, even when she was maturing and learning to understand the difference between a vigilante and a hero. It seemed only right that Diaz would have recruited her. This was where it had happened. The thing Helena would have hated Laurel for.

None of that mattered. If Helena Bertinelli wanted to live in the past, and wanted to make Laurel pay for her own past, they could do that. Almost immediately, the Black Canary put her Okinawan tonfa on the loop of her pants and got into a leopard-style kung fu stance as she walked up to the steps. “It won’t mean anything if you shoot me with that crossbow, Helena. You won’t ever know how good it would feel to knock me out with your bare hands if you use that crossbow. So put it down and fight me properly.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------

And so the fight began. Instantly, Laurel realized what Diaz must have felt. Fighting an opponent who’s angry, who’s so utterly angry that she loses control of her forms, is a rush. She didn’t know who had taught Helena dragon-style Kung Fu, but she ought to get her money back. This was entirely too easy for words. Before too long, with the aid of everything Richard Dragon had taught her, she landed a series of fast hand strikes and then a front kick to the stomach which dropped Helena like a ton of bricks. “It’s over, Helena.”

And then the lights went out.


End file.
